Soulmates. A word I have flippantly used and heard, especially as a wedding photographer and hopeful romantic. Are they real? How do you know? I invite you   to read  a little about my own experience, and you can decide for yourself. Maybe the most vulnerable thing I’ve posted on this space, few people have heard the depths of my inner experience because I haven’t had the words, but I think it’s finally time to share. I feel it rising up out of me to be expressed. My friends know I have a soul mate, but I rarely speak of the depths of my love and transformation in meeting him. 

I want to point to truth in everything I say and do. I want my experiences to enrich lives and open hearts and minds to what is possible. I thrive in hearing stories like this, they open me to possibility. You won’t hear the actual experience this time, but my inner landscape. You all know that I live in the land of impossibilities, and my experiences have pushed me into a reality I would not have known except through trauma and pain. I believe those depths will be met with the same levels of heights of love and joy life can bring. This story is not over, and that may be the magic of telling it from this point in time. 

Even though I have always believed in a love this powerful, I have had a hard time actually talking about love in my love. Especially love within relationships, so this has been a very hard thing for me to grasp.. and a very vulnerable thing for me to be sitting here talking to you about this.

I unexpectedly met one of my truest soul mates (I believe we have many, and different kinds at different stages in our lives) 4.5 years ago, the year  I turned 30. It has totally rocked my world. . It still does. If you know my story, you know this was only 6 months after leaving my toxic marriage. At the time I was also with another man, someone who truly helped me grow and expand more into the person I am today. I definitely was not ready for a forever relationship.

We’ve all heard people talk about “love at first sight”, and I always questioned that experience, but now I know it’s a real phenomenon.

The moment my eyes met his, everything flashed before me.. like a movie. The dreams I have had since I was a little girl, the premonitions of the future, the voice I would hear comfort me in my darkness, and the love that I have always known and carried within me suddenly woke up again in my heart like an explosion. Just one look, and I finally knew what unconditional love felt like. It wasn’t a new love, it’s a remembering of a love that has always been. That second was enough for me to be satisfied, knowing he actually exists.

This love is unlike any I had ever read or heard about. Imagine the love, respect, empathy and devotion you feel for everyone-your family, your best friend, mentors, teachers, children, your own self..all of it opening for this person you recognize, you love so much it’s almost too hard to even look at.. but you don’t even know their name.

This meeting of unconditional love sparked a spiritual kundalini awakening within myself, something I knew nothing about at the time. .and something I have spent many years learning about. I hope to share more about that experience (that never really ends) here too.   it has all  been one of the most beautiful and challenging things I’ve been given in this life. Suddenly my creativity, intuition, experience of God, and childlike passion for life woke Up after years of suppression. Being in his presence, I am unapologetically safe to be my fullest self. Something I had hidden for so long. This awakening of my truest self has extended into how I show up and operate in the world. People close to me have said I’ve changed, and I have.. because I’m no longer masking. I have just given myself the freedom to be fully me. Fully and whole heartedly alive. 

Synchronicities invaded my life, music became a soundtrack to my inner world. From that day forward everything has became spiritual. It has been a grand, almost unimaginable, opening of my heart. And that opening has changed the way I operate in the world. I’m a much more compassionate, empathetic, forgiving and tender person because of this opening of the heart. The synchronicities carried over into every person I have met since. I have a concrete knowing that each person and relationship I encounter is divinely placed in my life. I knew this truth before, but never felt and KNEW it. I can look back and see how every one has been given to me for my joy and my growth. Each person and each relationship has intrinsic and deep connection now. It’s truly amazing. 

As the years have passed, everything that is not unconditional love..all of my fears, jealousy, darkness.. have risen to the surface to be challenged and experienced, forgiven, and put to rest. The most challenging thing (other than the heartache of not being in his life) has been the task of learning to love myself unconditionally. 

The unworthiness I have felt, the pain and lessons from Past loves, all have been triggered to be released to open my heart to a grand love. This soul that I met saw me clearer than I could see myself, and until I have learned to accept and love myself unconditionally.. I could not see or love him in his fullness. I always felt inadequate, not special enough, not accomplished enough  to be with someone as special as him. Friends told me to watch out, that I could be taken advantage of.. and when I’m not operating as my best self, these thoughts still weigh me down. Now is one of those periods of time where my self confidence and congruency with my highest self isn’t super strong. But I have learned how to center in my heart and I know these are lies, and I stand again in my truth. 

From across the country, I would wake up to the sound of his voice or find myself hearing the noise of his daily routine. his presence has been with me in my darkest hours and highest joys. This soft presence brings me peace, makes me feel safer and more protected than I’ve ever felt. 

During meditation, I started to feel him and see him. Astral traveling is real, (have you heard of it? We can talk more about this amazing gift, too) and I’d find myself watching him as he went about his life. Totally Creeped me out in the beginning, but over time I’ve gotten used to it. My soul just wants to know he is safe and happy. I only want the best for his life, even if that means I’m may not be the best thing for him right now. 

One day a friend told me part of  his story, I knew nothing about him other than what I pieced together. After hearing his truth, I sat down on my couch and it all came flooding into my senses. Each time I learn more about this man, it takes a while for it to all settle into myself to be absorbed and known. It is a empathy I had never known, I feel it all, and cried for days and days. I become more loyal to this love, like the loyalty of a Blue Heeler. Funny enough, he called right when this happened. It seems our lives, our bodies,  dance around each other.. not ready to dance to the same song quite yet. 

We’ve  barely talked over the years, but each time we do, it feels like a dream. We have not spoken of our connection other than his immediate recognition, and my own confession of the same. It took me a little longer to understand what i intrinsically knew. Just hearing his voice over the phone, and I know what he is thinking and how he is feeling. Telepathy is real, and was so confusing at first. I often lose track of my own thoughts, because I’m swimming in the silent conversation of our souls. I become a giddy and nervous school girl, like I’m experiencing a crush for the first time. His voice, mesmerizing and angelic. 

We have never dated, we’ve never kissed, but we have touched. We both know the truth, but he skirts around any conversation of our connection. In touching him, I remembered the feel of his body, like someone who had been apart of my own self. I traced his face slowly with my hands, seeing him fully with my eyes closed. In touching him, our dreams merged into one, our bodies knew what the other wanted .. it was a divine dance. It was a homecoming my heart has always been searching for. It’s confusing, but so much is communicated in the silence.

Still, I have no adequate words in our limited language  for these feelings and experience. I started to do research, was this even possible? Is it all just a magnificent dream? I found stories that have helped me make sense of my experience, like shows like The OA and sense 8, “an uncommon bond” by Jeff brown, “resurrecting  Jesus” by adyashanti, and “the universal Christ” by Richard Rhor really helped me find understanding and peace . This man gave our friendship  the gift of grounding our souls into this reality, of tuning our hearts and lives to the same vibrational frequency. Even though our souls know one another, it has to be a relationship that is beneficial and coherent in the daily things life demands. 

The energy between us, so incredibly strong, you can almost see it. So triggering, sometimes I want to run away because it’s so much. With him, time doesn’t exist. I had been very ungrounded during the process. In his presence, I have a peace I’ve never known, my body stills and my pain dissipates. I am safe. I am seen, and I know seeing me and making a choice to be with someone like me takes a very special person. He has not made that choice, and that is okay, the love I have for him is free. 

We haven’t spoken in two years, which has been a deep deep heartache for me, almost daily it hurts. No falling out, but I trust him and I trust that if one of us is not ready for a relationship then it won’t work. Even though I long so deeply to be in with him, I know it is almost impossible to form a healthy bond when I am in a constant state of survival in my body. I would never ask him to be apart of this experience, because I know how deeply he feels my own pain. 

I have learned that a love like this demands full devotion. It demands a willingness to explore uncharted territory, and to be able to hold one another’s sorrow and joy while still holding our own. It asks us to open fully to one another, because nothing can be hidden when you see straight through someone to their heart. I know that in being with him we could experience the divine in a way that will bring heaven to earth. I have read about this, and have experienced little snippets of this  within partnerships I have had since my divorce. It would be a continual exploration of the divine in one another and all that is around us.. while still operating and grounding in the lives we are fully living.

Showing up for him as my most vulnerable self, a self i have not unveiled to any other..I often resort to feeling those feelings of not good enough, like the rejection of the timing of this love has to do with my physical body being “too much”, my trauma being “too much” and my inadequacy. How could someone so beautiful  ever feel the same way I feel about them? Did he lie to me? Change his mind? 

Because this heartache is so deep, I have tried everything I know to do to cut the cords Of connection, to forget it ever existed, to stop this yearning to be near him (and deep jealousy for those who are).. but it won’t go away. My conscious mind can stay away from it, but it always finds a way back into my heart. No matter what I do, it grows stronger. I plead for another love to come in and distract me, to help me forget. I have no idea what his favorite color is, or his favorite food.. but almost every day I feel his heart. There’s no more denying or justifying my experience, because this soul mate is real. 

I don’t know if we all have one, and I don’t know how it all works, but I do know these connections have purpose much higher than I can even imagine. I do know that those of us who have chosen to operate in this world in love are intrinsically connected..i believe we are all a form of soul mates. It’s like missing a best friend, a brother, a beloved. I don’t know if him and I will ever be together in this lifetime, but I do know that I have known unconditional love that surpasses time and space. 

I hope that he knows how grateful I am for his presence in the world. For all he has given and shown me. I know he may love another, I may love others, he may choose a path apart from me, and I surrender to this daily, learning more about unconditional love. Our love has opened me to the love Christ talks about, a deep love and gratitude for all beings. The hope of love this strong has literally kept me alive, I have fought to stay here to be able to experience